In 1917, two ships collided in the morning…and the result was the most powerful explosion on a human population besides Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Crazy that so few (including me) have heard of the great Halifax explosion, which happened when a French ship, the Mont Blanc, left New York loaded with more munitions than had ever been packed aboard a transport—three thousand tons of TNT plus other explosives—-and collided with the Imo, a Belgian ship, just outside of Halifax Harbor. Though slowed to one mile an hour to try to avoid impact, the collision caused a fire which led to Mont Blanc’s explosion just twenty minutes later. 

The ship vaporized in one-fifteenth of a second. 2,000 Halifax residents and sailors died immediately, another 9,000 suffered grave wounds, and a huge section of the city was leveled, leaving 25,000 (half the population) homeless. Shock waves and a 35 foot tsunami created further damage and death. 

With extensive research (offering far more detail and divergence than we need or want in some sections) the author tracks the ship’s munitions loading, its path through rough seas up the Atlantic coast, its awareness of U boats that would like to blow it up, and its ultimate plan to reach Halifax in time to travel to France in a convoy, for safety, before unloading its war cargo. He also tracks many elements of WWI as well as the history and growth of Halifax (including numerous individual families) and the history and rocky relationship between Canada and the US.  

Of the hundreds or thousands of people who rushed to Halifax’s aid after the explosion, the city of Boston was unique because it sent so many doctors and supplies, it responded so quickly, and it was not Canadian. To this day, Nova Scotia sends a 50 foot Christmas tree across 600+ miles as a thank you to the city of Boston. 

I learned a lot of history in this book: the US wanted to annex Canada as early as 1910; Canada felt the US was an untrustworthy and reluctant ally in war and trading; and trench warfare was so horrendous that governments had to propagandize positives to keep young men signing up. Sadly, much of this remains relevant or ever present today. 

This is an important story and a good book that could have used more editing. 4⭐️

Additional info: Some reviewers have criticized this book for repackaging much of Canadian author Janet Katz’s 1989 book Shattered City. Bacon acknowledges and praises it as a source in his acknowledgments, but I can’t speak to how much he used or overused it since I did not read it.